COURAGE AND POWER IN WESTMINSTER

Did you know that Downing Street was built by Sir George Downing, a very successful spy who betrayed his former mentor and friends?
Or that the Society of King Charles the Martyr still lay a wreath on the anniversary of the King's execution?
Have you ever wondered why the Queen has no any official power?
Discover a new way of looking at London by exploring one road; Whitehall.

WESTMINSTER GHOST WALK

Explore London after dark with with tales of ghosts, poltergeists and body-snatchers.
Discover a modern haunting in the National Gallery,
human bones buried in an 18th century house and scientific experiments with the recently dead.

Take a walk through an old alleyway and feel the chill of the past.
With spooky places, tragic events and head-less ghosts, this is Everyday London's Ghost Walk

Tours can be arranged at times that suit you, please contact us for more details

Reviews

"Had the pleasure of being on the Whitehall Walk with Andy this week. Really interesting knowledgable tour very well given.
Look forward to going on the Ghost Walk in the future."Brenda and John Ahrens March 2018

"I joined Andi on the Whitehall Walk. I'm English and have worked in and visited London many times but still learned much
from the clever placing of historical fact with historical place. I enjoyed it so much, I signed up for Andi's Ghost walk
and am happy to report I was not disappointed."John Hatswell Feb 2018

"It was a unique experience. Thanks again you were really good."Alba Maria Azorin Segura Jan 2018

"I really enjoyed the ghost walk last night! Andi is full of london knowledge. Thanks!" Lucy Mitchell Nov 2017

What a fabulous morning! Andi is a fantastic guide, with anecdotes, stories and facts about the well known landmarks of London.
Starting at Westminster and finishing up at Buckingham Palace two hours later, we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and it was very reasonably priced!
10 out of 10. Gemma Kedwell Jan 2017

These are members of the Footguards, one of five regiments that guard Buckingham Palace.
You can tell which regiment is which by the coloured flashes that they wear in their bearskin hats.
The gentleman in this picture is wearing the red of the Coldstream Guards.
The hats are real bear skin, a few years ago they did tried a synthetic hat
but it did not work very well and so they reverted to real skins. They are some of the most prestigous regiments in the British army and
have colourful histories. If you are interested visit their small museum, The Guards Museum
next-door to Buckingham Palace.

WHITEHALL; A London Road

More Information

It's an exciting place London and the heart of it is Whitehall, the focus of these tours.
Where else could you stand in the shadow of Big Ben and walk in the footsteps of James Bond, meet the pelicans in the old Royal Gardens and see the site of the
Ministry of Magic from the Harry Potter films. It's all here on this thousand year old road. Make the most of your holiday and take a stroll through the
streets of power with our Whitehall walk.

See the red uniforms, catch the glint of the polished armour of the Horseguards and wander through the old royal gardens to Buckingham Palace.
Get close up and personal to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and hear some of the personal stories of those who lived and worked there.

Our morning walk can include the full Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and the afternoon tour will be a rare opportunity to see the Dismount
ceremony at Horse Guards.

Discover the place of execution of a King and the site of a jousting tournament that lasted
a week with Knights attending from across Europe. Stand where the crowds partied all night in celebration at the end of
the war in Europe in 1945, among them a young princess Elizabeth disguised as an ordinary citizen.

FILMS IN LONDON; James Bond and Harry Potter

Tours arranged on request

Diagon Alley at Warner Brothers Studio

Visit the site of Diagon Alley and walk in the footsteps of James Bond as we explore the rich variety of film locations
in central London. With a special focus on Harry Potter and James Bond but also some of your other favourite films as well

Evil villain's secret hideaway. Can you guess which one?

Your Guides

Stephanie Merulla is co-founder of the company
and an experienced tour guide with a background in theatre and acting.
Originally from Canada she came to the UK to be part of the theatre
and arts community that London has to offer.
Currently touring across Europe, she is remembered fondly by all here at Everyday London

Christie Barraclough is an accomplished actor and tour guide.
Warm, witty and wise she will enchant with stories of times gone by and her own experience living and working in this wonderful town.

Andi Hall came to London 28 years ago to train to be a nurse, working as a tour guide for ten of those years.
His knowledge of London is extensive, the excitement and passion for his subject, enthralling.
Let him show you a London that you hadn't noticed before.
Andi reads and walks and plays music here and is always eager to learn new things so that he brings his best game to every tour.
He wrote the "Royal Westminster Walk", "Christmas in London" and stole the "Ghost Walk"
and may be found giving tours most days at the Royal Albert Hall.

Who we Are

What we Do

We write and produce our own tours of London. Each tour includes major London sights like Big Ben and provides an interesting
and entertaining commentary relating to the theme of the tour. You will get our undivided attention for a couple of hours so you can
ask questions and gain a Londoner's insight into how to get the most out of your holiday. We have been giving tours for many years
and are experienced with a whole range of groups of people, including young people, seniors and those with special needs.
We primarily guide for visitors to London, both native english speakers and those for whom english is not their first language.

Whitehall, A London Road

This is the tour that can include seeing the Changing of the Guard, either at Buckingham Palace or at Horseguards on Whitehall.
Timings vary for that but it happens twice a day most days and is an actual piece of living history,
these duties having been performed here for over three hundred years.
You can also see Harry Potter and James Bond film locations and stand in the center of what would have been Henry VIII's grandest and most
modern Palace. You can gaze through the 'Thatcher gates' to No 10 Downing Street, home of our Prime Minister and one of three surviving houses
from a terrace put up by a man whose name is still a byword for treachery in New England.

Whitehall is a road in the old city of Westminster which stretchs from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square and which follows the curve of the river Thames.
In the past the river was much wider with large islands within it and the ground around it damp and boggy marshland.
It has been suggested that before recorded history people crossed the river here and certainly records
indicate that in these ancient marshes at least one Church stood.
The road has always been a road of power from the palace of the Kings to the modern home of our Government and and much has happened on it
including the spark that ignited the civil war between Parliament and the King and the place where nine years later the axe fell that ended it.

The tour with change of the Guard will start on the corner of Great George Street and Parliament St by the red telephone box.

The tour without a Change will start by this
statue on the top left corner of Trafalgar Square as you face the National Gallery.

So you might run into these guys if you are wandering around Buckingham Palace. They are members of the Household Cavalry who
have been maintaining a guard duty in Whitehall since the seventeenth century. Here we see them practicing in Hyde Park very close to where they
are based in Knightsbridge. It takes some skill to be able to control these horses and they are often seen kicking up the dust practicing their turns.
If you look closely you can see the two uniforms, the blue of the Blues and Royals and the red of the Lifeguards.

Here are the Lifeguards on their way to take over the guard duty at Horseguards Parade in Whitehall.
Charles I had a barracks built there in 1642 just before the start of the English Civil War and they have been here ever since.
Inside the Horseguards museum just next door you can look through a glass partition and see into the stables and watch them prepare the horses.

Further information about the Changing of the Guard can be found here.

Guiding at the Royal Albert Hall is wonderful as the building is full of music and history, two
of my favourite things. If you are a fan of pop music then the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix
performed on that stage, a fan of classical music, well both Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi conducted their work there.
So many artists have performed there that it's easier to count those that didn't rather than those that did.

A spectacular victorian-workhorse of a building, people often stop dead still when they first come into the auditorium,
eyes widening as they attempt to take it all in.

We've all been on fantastic nights out and I'm sure you've seen some great shows but the recent
reading of the book, "Warhorse" was quite extraordinary.
The story, set during the First World War is told from the perspective of a horse and the author,
Michael Morpurgo, read the male characters and actress Joanna Lumley read the part of the horse.
They were accompanied by some lovely music mostly
written for the National Theatre production with songs sung by Tim van Eyken and it was drawn live by artist, Rae Smith.
For me the drawings brought the whole thing together and made the show.

As she drew her pictures they were projected upon a huge screen behind the stage and used rather well.
We were in the Gallery at the top of the auditorium as the narrator described the moment that
tanks are seen for the first time on a battle front and she drew an excellent picture of one rearing up a hill.
Then as the story continued she added straight lines to it that not only simulated the effect of shells and bullets
whizzing by but also left the picture looking like the Cubist art of its time.

Taking a tour group in for an event like that is a rare privilege indeed.

These colourful railings surround St Sepulchre near the boundary to the City. It has a strong feel, full of music and
home to the remains of Henry Wood, the gentleman who
pretty much single handedly ran the Promenade concerts for the first thirty years. He learnt to play
the organ here as a young man and whilst playing at the Queens Hall a few years later was discovered
by impressario Robert Newman and given the chance to conduct the Proms.
It is close to the site of Newgate prison and contains
a hand-bell that would be rung the evening before prisoners were taken for execution.
There is a crooked narrow garden to sit in and a drinking fountain that hasn't worked for years.
Come inside to see the words that were read to the prisoners on their last night on earth.

"the dome is not just about making it look good,
the dome is about making an awesome space
inside the church,
when the light hits the windows underneath it can light up
like you flicked a switch"

Finished just over three hundred years ago,
St Paul's Cathedral is what many people consider to be Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece.
It replaced a Norman Cathedral, sadly burned in the Great Fire, which was one of the wonders of the age.
It's beautiful inside and still a working church so many services take place here
including the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.
On the front steps the bird lady sang "feed the birds" in Disney's Mary Poppins and you can sit on those same
steps and look down Fleet Street and catch the late evening sun, people will have been doing that for hundreds of years.

When I was there we were lucky enough to be shown the library which is
just mental, a tall room surrounded by wooden bookshelves with great piles of books on all the tables and piled up on every available surface
with the librarian almost buried amongst all of it. They have a wonderful collection as books where sent from all around the country
to help restock the library after the Great Fire.

According to Wikipedia there are 6,800 scheduled buses running on over 700 routes with nearly 2 billion passenger
journeys each year.
A number of different buses are used but they almost all share the classic red livery that has been associated with London buses for many years.
Recent improvements include services that allow a passenger to discover when their bus is due with a mobile phone and new ways to pay your fare. Indeed if
you plan to use any of the London transport services it is sensible to get an Oyster Card. This has a small micro-chip in it that can be charged up with money and
used to pay fares on buses, the Underground trains and even river boats. The fares are cheaper with an Oyster and once you spend
the cost of a day pass it stops charging you. A rather clever bit of kit.

The bus network is extensive so for getting about town they are a great cheap option with lots to be seen from the top deck of the bus.
They can however be very slow so if you want to get anywhere quickly either a cab or a bike is your best bet.
The black cab is a London institution and can be hired on the street.
All drivers have done the Knowledge which involves learning thousands of streets off by heart and they can be a font of knowledge, stories and local colour.

The cycle hire scheme is fab. Known affectionately as Boris bikes they are fairly easy to use with docking stations
all over town where bikes can be hired and deposited.
Many routes are in parks or on cycle only lanes,
the new lane along the Embankment is a lovely ride all the way along the river from the Tower to Westminster.
Payment is taken via credit or debit card at the street terminals and journeys under half an hour are free.

So I was doing the Changing of the Guard part of my walk on the 22nd May and had told
my group to expect some Irish Drummers and felt a little foolish when they turned out to be Pipers.

So when to come to see the Change?
The change happens on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday out
of season but timings can vary so please check here, this website is your friend. If you want to be there
from the start then you need to be outside the courtyard of St James Palace just after 10.30am (I know, confusing isn't it ! Fortunately this
early Tudor palace is only across the park). If horses are more important then Horseguards is where it's at, the Change taking place on Horseguards Parade
at 11am every day except sunday when it's 10am. The dismount ceremony at is also worth seeing, essentially putting the horses away at night but done with
all this military ritual that has been preserved for over a hundred years.
This is done at 4pm in the smaller courtyard on the Whitehall side of the Horseguards.

The Westminster Abbey is a Royal Peculiar,
a church that professes alliegance to the Queen rather than to the Church of England. Once a home of monks, it was a little city within a city and had
its own laws and practices from times mostly forgotten. If time or cost don't permit going into the Abbey itself then take a walk in Deans Yard to see
some of the oldest buildings and even get a peek at where the monks used to pray.
Evidence of Roman activity suggests human use for at least two thousand years and our earliest written records indicate a church here in the seventh century.
It was near here that William Caxton set up his printing press at the sign of the Red Pale
and began the process that would eventually lead to the almost complete destruction of the hand-made book. It wasn't so at the begining though
and those early copies must have
been seemed so poor compared to something hand-made. Indeed in one of his early books he notes in the preface the difficulties he had with the established industry.

Old Tours

A London Christmas

20th-31st Dec including Christmas Day

If you want to make the most of your holiday, see the sights and discover something new then you are in the right place. Each Everyday London walk
mixes the must see sights with stories, insights and off the beaten track routes that explore the best of what London has
to offer. For Christmas I have gathered a potted history of Christmas itself and wrapped it up with modern Christmas Trees, Markets and Nativity scenes.
It includes a walk across the river, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

Come and find out how London
has celebrated Christmas and what has changed over four hundred years. Featuring fabulous Frost Fairs on the frozen Thames,
Charles Dicken's ghosts and torn winter clothes as the local youngsters take advantage of the crowds to play tricks on the adults,
experience a London Christmas with Everyday London.

Tours cost ten pound per person and take about an hour. We meet at the Thumbs Up statue on Trafalgar Square and finish by Westminster Abbey